Woodland Scene, Monhegan, Maine 1918

Robert Henri painted this impression of a Woodland Scene in Monhegan, Maine, with loose strokes and a palette leaning heavily on leafy greens and earthy browns. You can almost feel the painting coming into being, stroke by stroke, with the artist responding to the emerging image, shifting and adjusting until a sense of the place is captured. I can imagine Henri standing there, squinting at the light filtering through the trees, trying to capture not just what he saw, but how it felt to be there. The paint looks applied in thin layers, scrubbed into the surface, giving it a slightly raw, immediate feel. Look at the way he's rendered the tree trunks—those quick, decisive marks communicate so much about their texture and the way they stand against the light. It reminds me a little of some of the landscape work by the Impressionists, but with a slightly tougher, more American sensibility. Artists like Henri are always talking to each other across time through their work, and inspiring each other to see and feel in new ways. Painting like this reminds us that there’s always more than one way to look at the world.